Tales Of Homeland Insecurity

February 15, 2006

Michael Brown, former head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, did a heck of a job skewering the White House and his boss at the Department of Homeland Security, Michael Chertoff, for hanging him out to dry after the failed government response to Hurricane Katrina.

Mr. Brown sounded a little like Howard Beale, the TV news anchorman played by Peter Finch in the movie ``Network,'' who rebelled after being fired by shouting, ``I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it anymore.''

It would be tempting to dismiss Mr. Brown's rant before a Senate committee investigating the government's response to the disaster as theater. But its substance was enough to terrify all who believe the nation is safer since the creation of a Homeland Security Department.

In the four-plus years since 9/11, billions have been spent to centralize response to catastrophes such as those perpetrated by terrorists that day. You'd think emergency response would have improved.

Yet Mr. Brown's testimony about Katrina exposed misplaced priorities, confusion and failures in the chain of command that indicate not much has been learned. What's worse, he said the mega-department has focused on terrorism to the detriment of natural disasters. The White House doesn't seem to care enough about natural disasters, said Mr. Brown, because FEMA has been relegated to ``stepchild'' status at the DHS.

To make his point, he testified that on the day after the storm, White House officials professed to be ``caught by surprise'' at the extent of flooding in New Orleans. But Mr. Brown told investigators that he informed someone at the White House -- he wasn't sure who took the call -- on Aug. 29, the day the hurricane hit, that a levee had been breached and there was disaster ahead. That timeline was confirmed in a blistering report on Katrina response by House Republicans.

The White House, according to spokesman Scott McClellan, didn't act on the intelligence because there were conflicting reports about the levee. Either they didn't believe Mr. Brown, or they were waiting for word from a higher authority, Mr. Chertoff.

Meanwhile, Mr. Brown isn't blameless. He admitted he deliberately left Mr. Chertoff out of the loop. It would have been a ``waste of time'' to inform his boss because natural disasters had been eclipsed in importance at FEMA by national security issues.

Whew. This mishmash of missteps and turf tantrums would be funny if the results weren't so tragic.

At the very least, Congress should rethink the structure of DHS and whether FEMA would be more effective as a separate agency. The Republicans' report, one of several investigations due out on the abysmal response to Katrina, cites failures at all layers of government, but made a point that the White House's delayed response to the levee breach cost lives.

That conclusion raises troubling questions about the nation's readiness to react to other security threats.